1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for searching data (i.e., an image) using a histogram.
2. Background of the Related Art
Images or pictures can be stored on a computer in digital form. Utilizing digital images is becoming increasingly popular. This popularity may be attributed to the low cost of producing digital images as compared to images taken with a conventional camera using film. One advantage is digital images can be distributed electronically via the Internet. Another attribute is that there is no incremental cost per image to produce the digital image by digital camera. Accordingly, a user of a digital camera may tend to take many pictures. Further, there is an enormous amount of digital images available to users via the Internet. It is often a great task for a user to locate a digital image through a search. Accordingly, search engines exist for searching for digital images. However, these search engines suffer from at least two disadvantages. One disadvantage is that not all images are represented in the same way for purposes of the search. For example, two images may be represented by a histogram for searching purposes, however the histograms utilize different protocols which are not compatible. Another disadvantage is that data relating to an image (i.e., a histogram) may be only partially transferred between computers on a network and cause that partial transfer of the histogram to be useless.